Mozambique’s gross domestic product has grown at an average of 7.2 percent over the past decade, even though the country remains one of the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped. With new discoveries of coal and natural gas, the country could become a major exporter of minerals over the next decade. Many new Portuguese arrivals are heading to the coal-rich town of Tete in the northwest in search of work.
Giant yellow construction cranes soar into the sky in Maputo, where a building boom is underway to feed the appetite of its growing middle class.
That’s why construction worker Manuel Silva, 37, arrived here two months ago. In Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, building activity had come to a halt. So when a Portuguese company offered him a contract, first in Angola, then in Mozambique, he readily accepted. In Maputo, he earns 50 percent more than he made in Lisbon. And his salary gets paid in Portugal.
“My family needs money. We have four kids to feed,” Silva said.
Urban planner Ana Martins, 31, left her Portuguese government job last year because she was worried that the euro crisis would bring more austerity measures. In Maputo, she is the director of a Portuguese architectural consulting firm, earning three times what she made in Lisbon, with an apartment, car and other perks. Every week, she said, she receives e-mails from Portuguese seeking work in Mozambique.
In January, her husband plans to move here, as well. He is a doctor, and he said the medical industry in Mozambique is growing, with more hospitals and clinics seeking trained professionals. “In Portugal, we have no future to grow our careers,” Martins said.
Benefits and setbacks
Among Mozambicans, reaction toward the Portuguese influx is mixed. Some say the immigrants bring much needed expertise in construction, technology, banking and industry to this rapidly growing nation.
“They are an advantage, not a disadvantage,” said Andre Massina, 27, a Mozambican engineer who works with foreign companies. “They are coming here to create something new. They are creating jobs here.”
But others see the wave of arrivals as a form of neo-colonialism. In interviews, Mozambican construction workers expressed resentment at the higher wages paid to workers from Portugal for doing the same work. “They use us and they insult us. They don’t treat us very well,” said Paolo Domingos, 21, a Mozambican construction worker. “I prefer they go home and never come back.”
It’s still not easy for Portuguese to find work in Mozambique. For every foreign worker employed by a local company, several locals have to be hired by law. Foreigners must navigate a slow-moving developing-world bureaucracy, in which it can take months to get work documents.
And for every Portuguese who finds work, others have little success. Under pressure because of the crisis at home, they arrive with unrealistic expectations of quickly finding a job. In Maputo, where rents are soaring and most goods are pricier than in Portugal, the immigrants’ money quickly runs out — and they are forced to fly back home.
“They come with lots of financial problems, with little money and much hope,” said Nuno Pestana, owner of Taverna, a well-known Portuguese restaurant. “Then the money runs out, and so does the hope.”
Many Portuguese companies also find it difficult to gain a foothold in Mozambique. “You have to invest a lot of money, and it could take years to succeed,” said Ema Soares, executive director of the Mozambique-Portugal Chamber of Commerce.
Still, 400 Portuguese companies have registered to meet her team at a Lisbon trade fair this month to explore investment opportunities in Mozambique, a 25 percent increase from last year. “They all want to escape the crisis,” she said.
Charata understands. Most of his friends back home are jobless and worried about the day their unemployment benefits run out. He said he has made a big effort to blend into Mozambican society. Although he earns less than half of what he made in Portugal, he has no plans to leave in the near future.
“The worst scenario is to go back to Portugal,” Charata said. “For the next five or 10 years, it will be hard to have a good life there.”
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